Unerased Hosted by Trish Lacy (Author of Erased In My Home)

The hardest part of healing is realizing you’re still alive, but you’ve been slowly disappearing. Trish Lacy launches Unerased with the stories that come after her memoir Erased in My Home and puts words to an experience many people can’t quite name: the quiet erosion of self-trust that happens when you keep the peace at the cost of yourself.

We talk about the “driveway moment” when you sit in the car, not scrolling or resting, just trying to gather the strength to walk back into your own life. Therapy helps Trish translate that silence into grief and gives her a question that cracks the foundation: “When did you learn that love had to be earned?” From marriage to career to friendships, we trace how believing you must be useful to be valuable can shape every relationship, and why understanding your trauma still isn’t the same as healing it.

Motherhood brings the turning point into focus. Trish shares how her daughter’s autism and ADHD diagnosis pushes her into research mode, only to learn a deeper truth: you can’t think your way through what has to be felt. We unpack emotional regulation, tears as repair, and the surprising freedom of stopping the endless fixing. The episode closes with a powerful metaphor, a wedding on Independence Day, and a redefinition of independence as reclaiming your voice and worth.

If you’ve ever felt unseen, unheard, or unsure of who you are anymore, you belong here. Subscribe to Unerased, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the one line you want your future self to remember.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

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All right.

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Welcome, welcome. Trying to get a hang of this, you guys. Well, here we are. Welcome, everybody, to my very first episode of Unnie Raced. Before we get started, I know I do owe a few people an apology. Apparently, not everyone spends as much time on TikTok as I do. So if you showed up tonight thinking that I was about to announce that I'm starting in a Netflix documentary, I am so sorry to disappoint you. It was a joke. It wasn't a TikTok trend. And based on the number of messages I got yesterday, I now learned that not everyone knows that that trend exists. So no, there isn't a Netflix crew hiding backstage, at least not yet. But I really hope you'll stay anyway. Um, because I think that tonight's gonna be even more important than a documentary. Tonight isn't about the cameras, it's about conversations. And I have a feeling this one might stay with us long after tonight is over. Um, I've dreamed about this moment for so long. And now that it's finally here, I have to be honest with you guys. A lot of you guys already know you've gotten in text messages. I'm really, really nervous. Not because I'm afraid of speaking, I've done interviews before. I've talked about my books, my book more times than I can count. But this really does feel different. Tonight isn't an interview. Um, tonight isn't about me selling my book. Tonight is me inviting you into my life. Um I want to ask you a question. Have you ever looked in the mirror and realized you weren't quite sure who was looking back anymore? I have. And if you've ever felt that way, I think you're in exactly the right place tonight. So wherever you're watching from, somewhere across the world, whether you're sitting on your couch, cooking dinner, folding laundry, or maybe, just maybe, you're sitting in your own driveway, trying to gather enough strength to walk into your house. I'm really glad you're here. Thank you. Thank you for trusting me with your time. And my prayer is that before this episode is over, you don't just know my story. I hope you begin to see to see pieces of your own as well. Um, so before we go any further, there are two people I need to

Gratitude For The Team And Listeners

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thank because this podcast would not exist without them. First, I want to thank my incredible partner and producer, Dr. Jacqueline Cox. Dr. Cox, thank you for believing in me when I couldn't quite see this vision for myself. You kept encouraging me to take this conversation beyond the pages of my book. You kept reminding me that people didn't just need a story, they needed a place to continue the conversation. You believe that healing deserved a mic. You challenged me to create one. So thank you for your encouragement, your wisdom, your friendship, for your faith in me. And I could not have done this truly without you. And I also have to thank my cousin, Rich Soul. Um, first of all, can we talk about the theme song for the podcast? That song, I absolutely love it. The first time I heard it, I got chills because I it didn't just sound like a song. It felt like this podcast. It felt hopeful, it felt strong, it felt honest. It felt like it was it was me. It felt like me. So, Rich, thank you for sharing your gift with me. Thank you for always holding me down. Thank you for always believing in me. Thank you for reminding me who I am on the days that I forget, always being 100 with me. I am so grateful that your music is a part of my journey. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And while I'm saying thank you, I want to thank all of you who showed up today. Some of you have been here long before there was a podcast, before there was a published book, before there were interviews, before there were billboards on Times Square. Some of you have literally watched me become the woman sitting in this chair tonight. You've celebrated every victory. You prayed for me through some really dark seasons in my life, and you sent messages that I've saved because I needed to read them again on the days when I wasn't sure I was making a difference. And some of those messages still make me cry. People have written to tell me I finally started therapy because of your book. I finally told my sister what I've been living through. I finally realized I wasn't crazy. Um, I finally left. Those aren't just messages, those are lives. And every time I read one, I'm reminded why I told my story in the first place. And you know what's funny? Everybody thinks that this book, Erased in My Home, is where my story ends. Um, people see the last page and assume it's the finish line. Honestly, I assume

Why The Story Continues After Memoir

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that too. I really believed I'd write the final chapter, close my laptop, cry a little bit, and and think, okay, I'm healed, right? Wouldn't that have been nice? But life doesn't always go as you want it to go. It doesn't work that way. The truth is the important chapter of my story began after this book was published, and nobody has read that chapter yet. And that's why Unerased exists. So this isn't a podcast about promoting my memoir. This is a podcast about what happened after the memoir. So I would consider this chapter 37. The chapter where I realized surviving and healing are not equal, they're not the same. The chapter where I learned that telling your story isn't the end of the journey. Sometimes it's just the beginning. So before we go any further, I need you to make me one promise. If I'm gonna be honest with you tonight, I need you to promise you'll be honest with yourself. You don't have to tell me your story, you don't even have to share it all in the comments. But I hope that while we're talking tonight, you'll pay attention to the moments that make your heart whisper. That sounds familiar because those whispers usually have something important to teach us. So if we've never met, let me introduce myself. My name is Trish Lacey. Today I'm an HR professional, an author. I'm an entrepreneur, and my most important accomplishment is that I'm a mom. I laugh louder than I probably should. I still overthink text messages. I still call my mama when I need advice. I believe people deserve second chances and believe healing is possible. And every Thursday, I still show up to Thursday to therapy because I believe that something healthier, um, healthier version of ourselves is lifelong work. It's not a one-time thing, one and done. That's the version of Trish you're meeting tonight, not because she's finished healing, but because

What It Means To Be Erased

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she finally stopped pretending she didn't need to. So people ask me all the time, what does the title erased in my home, or what does erase actually mean? And I used to answer that question by talking about emotional abuse. And I would say now I probably would answer that question a lot differently. Um, because being erased isn't just about one relationship. Being erased is what happens when you slowly stop trusting yourself. It's about apologizing before you've decided whether you've done something wrong. It's asking everybody else what they want while forgetting to ask yourself. It's becoming so good at keeping the peace that you no longer know what brings you peace. It's shrinking yourself little by little until one day someone asks, What do you want? And you honestly don't know. Not because you're you're incapable, it's because you spent years making everybody else comfortable while abandoning yourself. And that's what being erased looks like for me. Not one catastrophic moment, but a thousand tiny moments, tiny compromises, tiny silences, tiny apologies until I became so quiet that I could barely hear my own voice. There is a story in my book. I would say it's the signature story everybody asks about, where I'm sitting in my driveway after work. I pull into the driveway, turn off the and turn off the um turn off the engine, and just sit there. Um, sometimes five minutes, sometimes 15. I wasn't checking my phone, I wasn't listening to music, I wasn't waiting for anyone. I wasn't, I was just trying to become the version that could walk through my own front door at that time. And back then, if you'd asked me why I stayed in that car, I probably would have said I was tired. Today, therapy has given me language I didn't have then. Like I wasn't tired. I was grieving. I was grieving the woman I used to be. I was grieving my confidence, my laughter, anyone who knows me knows I love to laugh, my certainty, my voice. I didn't know it then, but I was mourning myself. I was mourning me. So if you've ever sat in your own driveway, or maybe you've cried in the car on your way to work, or cried in the shower because it was the only place no one could hear you, or maybe you smiled through a meeting while quietly falling apart inside. I want you to know something. I see you because I've been you. Have you ever had that driveway moment? Maybe it wasn't a driveway for you, maybe it was your office parking lot, maybe it was your bathroom, maybe it was sitting in your car outside the grocery store, a place where you just stayed a little bit longer because you weren't ready to walk back into your life. If you've had one, I want you to know you're not alone. Check in the comments right now, see what's happening out there. Hi guys, hi Ryan. I am hey

The Driveway Moment And Grief

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to all right. Thanks for joining me. So let me tell you guys what happened this week. Every Thursday, I go to therapy, and yes, I'm still in therapy. People are so surprised by that. They'll say, Really? After writing the book? Absolutely. Because writing tells a story, therapy helps me understand it. And this week, my therapist asked me one question, just one. Trish, when did you learn that love had to be earned? Because, and I sat there, right, for a moment, because in that moment I realized how many parts of my life have been built around that belief. In my marriage, my career, my friendships, motherhood. Even after publishing this book, I became the helper, the fixer, the achiever, the one who carried everyone else's burdens. And somewhere along the way, I started believing that if I wasn't useful, I wasn't valuable. I'm gonna say that again for you guys in the back. If I wasn't useful, I wasn't valuable. That if I wasn't giving, I wasn't worthy of receiving. So many of you know my daughter has been on her own healing journey. And I enrolled in the program. Uh, wanted to become a mental health coach because I wanted to better understand how I, as her mother, could support her. And in my session this week, I was explaining all the books I was reading, everything I was learning, how much I wanted to understand. And he smiled and then he said, You're trying to think your way through something that has to be felt. And that one, it really found me here because that's what I've always done. I'm an HR professional. I solve problems for a living, I analyze things, I organize, I create plans. I thought that if I could understand her pain and mine, I could heal it. But healing isn't a spreadsheet, it's not a checkbox in a world that could heal it. There isn't a checklist. There's healing just asks us to sit with the feelings we've been spent we spent years trying to outrun. And I'm still trying to learn how to do that, if I'm being honest with you guys. And honestly, I hope I never stop learning because the day I stop growing is the day I stop really living. And I don't ever want to be someone who believes that she has all the answers, right? I'd rather stay curious, uh, stay teachable, and keep becoming, which brings me to something I want you to know about this podcast. I'm not here because I'm pretending that I have all the answers because you know I don't. I'm here because I'm willing to keep asking the questions. I'm not inviting you to watch someone who's finished healing, I'm inviting you to walk beside someone who is still becoming. And maybe that's exactly what makes us qualified to have this conversation together. What do you think? So, you know, people ask me all the time, what is my favorite chapter in this book? And honestly, I never know how to answer that question because every chapter in this book cost me something. Some chapters cost me sleep, some cost me tears, some cost me relationships, some cost me pieces of myself that I didn't even realize I had lost until I started writing. There were nights where I would open my laptop

When Love Feels Like It’s Earned

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and I would write one sentence and close it because I couldn't breathe. Not because I didn't remember, but because I remembered too much. When people hear the words emotional abuse, I think they expect one huge story, like one giant moment, one terrible night, one huge event. But that's not how it happened for me. And I think that's one of the reasons emotional abuse is so difficult to explain, and it's so difficult for people to understand as well. It doesn't usually erase you all at once, it introduces itself quietly, almost almost kind of polite, like politely. It's the comment that makes you question yourself. It's the joke that's really an insult, the apology that somehow becomes your responsibility. It's the conversation where you leave wondering, wait, was that my fault? And then it happens again and again, and again, and then one day you stop asking whether or not it was your fault because you've already decided that it probably was. That's how it happened to me, not overnight. It happened one compromise at a time, one apology at a time, one silence at a time, until I got so good at keeping the peace that I forgot to keep myself. There's a chapter in this book where I talk about losing my voice. Not literally. I mean, you guys know I'm very vocal about a lot of things, so I could still speak, right? But somewhere along the way, I stopped saying what I really thought because it just seemed easier. Easier than arguing, easier than defending myself, easier than explaining. Have you ever done that? Have you ever kept quiet, not because you agree, but because you were tired of defending yourself and tired of proving yourself? Tired of being misunderstood. Looking at the comments here. That's a different kind of exhaustion, and it follows you everywhere. It follows you to work for sure, follows you to church, definitely to family dinners, um, to friendships. Eventually, you don't even know, you don't even notice you're doing it anymore. That's what being erased looks like. It wasn't dramatic, it was ordinary, which somehow makes it even more scary because ordinary things became reminders that I no longer trusted myself. And here's what therapy has taught me. That did not start in my marriage. That belief had roots deeper than I realized. The marriage just watered it. But the seed, the seed had been planted years before that. That's one of the hardest things I've learned this year. Sometimes we're not just healing from one relationship, we're healing from every place we learned that love had to be earned. Every place we learned that peace was more important than honesty. Every place we learned that keeping everyone else comfortable mattered more than keeping ourselves whole. That realization changed the way I read my own book. Now, when I go back and read these chapters, I don't just see a woman who was surviving. I see a little girl who had been trying to earn love for a very, very long time. And that changed everything. So this week after therapy, I sat in my car for a few minutes before driving home and I laughed just like I was smiling now. Not because anything was funny, but because I realized here I was again, sitting in the car just like I used to. Only this time everything was different. Years ago, I sat in the driveway because I was afraid to go inside. This week I sat in my car because I wanted to make sure I didn't rush past what I had just learned. Years ago, I sat there because I felt trapped. This year I sat there because I felt free enough to feel. Different car, different woman. Right? I'm gonna clap for myself on that. Um, healing doesn't always look like dramatic change. Something, sometimes healing is realizing you're sitting in the same place, like I just said, and you're no longer the same

How Emotional Abuse Shrinks You

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person. And if you've been watching tonight, I hope you've noticed something. I haven't I haven't shared these stories because I want you to feel sorry for me. I don't. I'm not ashamed of my story anymore. I used to be. Um, I'm grateful for the woman who survived it. She got me here. But I also know she's not the woman I'm becoming. That's the woman I want you to meet. The woman who's still learning, still healing. She's still asking questions, still showing up to therapy. She still gets it wrong a lot of the time. She's still discovering pieces of herself she forgot existed. Because I have a feeling I'm not the only one. I think there are a lot of us walking around with successful careers, beautiful families, big smiles, and quiet questions. Questions like, am I enough? Why do I still doubt myself? Why do I feel guilty when I choose myself? Who am I when I'm not taking care of everybody else? If you've ever asked yourself those questions, welcome. You're in the right place. Because those are exactly the conversations we're going to have here. So there was another moment while writing this book that I don't think I've ever shared publicly. There were days when I would finish a chapter and think nobody is going to believe this. Not because it wasn't true, because it sounded unbelievable. Then I'd have another thought. What if people think I'm exaggerating? Have you ever noticed how survivors themselves they question themselves even while telling the truth? That's what trauma does. It teaches you to doubt your own memories. So while writing this book, it wasn't just about remembering, it was about believing my own self. Like, so maybe for the first time, that was a sentence I never thought I'd say. I had to learn to believe myself. Like those things really happened to me. And so one of the greatest gifts that this book has given me is the people I've met because of it. At some point, someone eventually leans in and says the same thing. I thought I was the only one. Every single time. Same sentence. I thought I was the only one. Let me tell you something. So did I. For years. I thought nobody could possibly understand what it felt like to slowly disappear while everyone around you thought everything looked normal. But here's what I've learned pain isolates you. Stories reconnect us. And that's why I wrote this book. Not because I wanted people to know my story, but because I wanted someone else to recognize theirs. And maybe that's why you're here tonight. Not because you're trying to become me, but because somewhere inside my story, you caught a glimpse of yourself. If that's true, I want you to know something. You are safe here. You don't have to prove your pain. You don't have to compare your story to mine. You do not have to earn your seat at this table. If you've ever felt unseen, unheard, or like you've lost pieces of yourself trying to survive, you belong right here. Welcome home. So I think it's only fair that next I talk about the person who changed my life and who never asked to, right? So, you know, there's one person I've mentioned a couple of times tonight, and I haven't really introduced you to her physically, my daughter. So if you've read Erased in My Home, you know, she's woven throughout every chapter. But what you may not know is that she's still helping me write the chapters that came after the book. People sometimes ask me, what was the moment? What finally made you leave? And I wish I could tell you there was one dramatic event. Like I know the chapter, the question in the serial aisle comes

Roots, Childhood, And Self Doubt

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to mind. And that's a part of it, but it also isn't the moment. Um, there was not one huge dramatic event. It's hundreds of little moments that finally become too heavy to carry, which provoked that conversation in the serial aisle. But if I had to tell you about one of the biggest turning points in my life, it would be this. I realized my daughter was not listening to what I was telling her about love. She was watching me and watching what I was willing to accept. And that realization brought me to my knees. Because every parent wants to believe they're teaching their child the right things. We tell them to use their voices, to stand up for themselves, to know their worth, to choose people who are kind, to never settle. But children don't learn those lessons because we say them. They learn because they watch us live them. And one day I had to ask myself a question that absolutely broke my heart. If my daughter grows up believing that love looks like what she's seeing, would I be okay with that? Absolutely not. No, and that no became louder than any fear that I was experiencing at the time. It became louder than all the excuses that I created before. It became louder than all the reasons that I stayed because suddenly this it wasn't about me anymore. It was about the legacy that I was leaving. It was about her, right? And what's so beautiful, and honestly, it's a little ironic, is that today she's still teaching me. Many of you know that my daughter has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD and other things. But like any mom, my first instinct is how do I fix this? Who do I call? What books do I read? What therapy does she need? How do I make this easier for her? Because that's what moms do. We jump into action, we become researchers, we are becoming advocates, protectors, problem solvers. And if you're a parent and you're watching tonight, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You would move mountains for your child. I would do anything for my daughter. I know I would, at least. So when she started her healing journey, I thought, I'm I'm gonna go with you, I'm going with you. Not because she was struggling the way she was, but because I wanted to understand her world. I started reading everything I can get my hands on, enrolled into a mental health coaching uh training program, watched videos. I wanted just all the knowledge because knowledge has always made me feel safe. Then something unexpected happened. The more I learned about emotional regulation, the more I realized nobody had ever taught me those skills either. So here I am, almost 47 years old, and I'm thinking, wait, what does emotional healthy processing look like? Nobody taught me this. Maybe nobody taught you that either. And there was something strangely

Motherhood As The Turning Point

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comforting about that because it wasn't that I missed out, but it was because I finally understood that healing isn't about blaming ourselves for what we didn't know, it's about learning what we were never taught. So that conversation this week completely shifted my perspective, perspective. And I was talking with someone about my daughter, about coaching, about therapy, and about how badly I really wanted to understand so I could help her. And he listened very patiently and smiled and said to me, You're trying to solve this with your head. Healing happens with your heart. I laughed at that because my brain oftentimes functions in the world of black and white. I need facts, I need things. But he had me figured out in about 10 minutes, and that's exactly what I do. I think I analyze, I organize, I intellectualize. If there's a problem, I want to solve it. If there's pain, I want to understand it. But somehow I convinced myself that if I understood my pain and hers well enough, it couldn't hurt anymore. But healing doesn't work like that. You can't explain every chapter of your trauma and still cry when something reminds you of it. You can understand exactly why someone treated you the way they did, and you still have to grieve what you lost. Understanding is important, but understanding is not the same as healing. Feeling is, and let me tell you, feeling is a whole lot harder, at least it is for me. So this week I did something I spent most of my life avoiding. I stopped trying to fix myself. I and I simply just let myself feel. I cried, not because I'm weak, but because I was finally safe enough to. And that might be one of the biggest lessons therapy has taught me. Tears are not evidence that you're falling apart. Sometimes they're evidence that you're finally putting yourself back together. And that's one of the reasons this podcast exists. Not because I want to teach you how to heal. I don't think anybody can do that. Healing is deeply personal, but I can tell you what I'm learning. I can tell you where I struggle, and I can tell you what my therapist challenges me with. Um, I can tell you when I get it wrong, and I can tell you when I had breakthroughs. And maybe in hearing my story continue, you'll feel a little bit more permission to continue writing your own. And I'm gonna share one more thing with you about this book. I want to share something from my book that I've been thinking a lot about lately. There's a chapter where I write about getting married on the 4th of July, Independence Day, July 4th. Out of all the days of the year, I chose the day that celebrates freedom. And at the time, I thought I was standing at the beginning of the happiest chapter of my life. I thought I was saying yes to forever. I thought I was walking toward love, I thought I was walking towards building a home. I had dreams, dreams that looked like so many of yours. A marriage built on trust. I wanted a partnership, a family, a safe place to land after a hard day. And I don't think anyone walks down the aisle hoping they'll

Freedom, Voice, And The Next Chapter

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one day write a memoir about surviving their marriage, right? I certainly didn't. So when I looked at those wedding pictures, I didn't, I don't see a foolish woman anymore. I see a hopeful one. I see a woman who believed in love, a woman who believed in commitment and who believed that if she gave her whole heart, it would be cherished. She wasn't naive, she was hopeful, and there's a difference. For a long time, I looked back at the that wedding day with sadness. I thought about everything that followed, everything I lost, everything that hurt. But therapy has taught me to look at that day differently. And that wedding day was not the day I lost myself. It was a day a journey began that would eventually force me to find myself. Do I wish the pain had never happened? Of course. Um, do I wish my daughter and I had never experienced what we did? Without question. Um, but I no longer look at that young bride with shame. I look at her with compassion because she had no idea what was ahead. She was simply choosing love with the understanding she had at the time. And I would sit beside her today. I would take her hands and tell her, you do not have to earn love. Love should not require you to disappear. The right love will never ask you to abandon yourself. And then I tell her something else like, one day you're gonna discover the greatest act of independence in your life, and it won't happen on your wedding day. It'll happen the day you decide to reclaim your voice. Isn't that something? I got married on Independence Day, believing freedom was something I was walking into. And years later, I discovered freedom was something I had to find. I had to fight to find. Not just freedom from a relationship, freedom from fear, from shame, from believing I had to become smaller to be loved, freedom to speak, freedom to trust myself again, freedom to laugh, freedom to dream. This is a big one. Freedom to become the woman God created me to be before life convinced me to be somebody else. That is why this podcast is called Unerased. Because freedom isn't just leaving, freedom is remembering, remembering your voice, remembering your worth, remembering your dreams, remembering that the person you thought was gone was never gone at all. She was waiting, patiently waiting for you to come back and find her. So your story didn't end with what happened to you. The pen is back in your hands now. So this week, I want you to write a chapter with you uh for your future self that you will be proud to read. Until next Sunday, guys. Keep healing, keep becoming, and remember you were never erased. Good night, my friends.

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Yeah. Okay, but counted me out. I learned how to know it is a mystery.